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My dance costume
I took lessons at the National Ballet |
That's what my granddaughter, Josephine, told me during
our Skype call today! She is excited because she is taking ballet lessons! We pretty sick, still, so no party. Hubby's in bed. Thank goodness for sappy Christmas movies!
Today is my birthday. Yes, Boxing Day.
But I didn't meet my mother until I was 6 months old. I was adopted at this tender age, having been in foster care prior to this, where my foster mother called my
Cookie rather than giving me a permanent name!
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My kitten, and ballerina wallpaper when I had measles! |
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| Another Christmas |
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| Nanny, Mom, Dad - 1970 |
It helps to write about life, love, happiness, and putting language to our lives. I am fortunate in that I have had three mothers, all told. My adoptive mother told me I was chosen. I was treasured. As a
relinquished child, I was blessed. We had a book we read about an adopted child. It was a wonderful read. We usually spent Boxing Day visiting my Dad's side of the family. We saw Mom's side on a more regular basis. Nanny babysat us every Thursday while Mom and Dad went to choir practice, and she fed us lunch when Mom went back to work in 1961!
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| Christmas 2001 - one of the last turkeys Dad ever carved! |
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| Santa's Village in Bracebridge in summer |
My birth mother gave me up. I was illegitimate, and those times were different. Enid was living in Toronto with a foster family until my birth. She was from a farming family in south Ontario and I was the result of a one-night stand. Not exactly a Hallmark moment, but it is the truth. My father doesn't even know he is my father! I never had a chance to ask my mother about him.
We only met once and she insisted on going to a movie!
I was doing griefwork with
my late friend, Kaye, and she said that when she awake in the night, in those last few weeks of her death, she kept reliving her horrible mistakes she had made. We spoke of this, how we perseverate on this, and not our shining moments. This is why I do a Life Review with most of my clients. It is an opportunity to be positive, and to honour who you are before you are gone. This is why many of us write and blog about our lives.
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Christmas 1980 = Me, Caitlin,
Serena Moffat (a young girl I babysat!) |
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| My eight birthday |
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Christmas - Barbie and the angel (1960s)
I still have that angel! |
Do not focus on one's day of death, or
the place of their death, focus on the day of their birth. This is what I tell those who mourn. I now loathe those
Roadside Memorials, or the newspaper remembrances on the day the peson died. Most of us die peacefully, and it is possible to have a good death.
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| Winter on Walker Ave., Toronto |
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| Cookies, milk for Santa! |
When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
